arbitrary detention
Captivity without justification
Arbitrary detention is imprisonment or confinement without legal justification or due process.
The term appears in human rights discourse to describe unlawful arrests, indefinite holding without charge, or incarceration based on political motives rather than legitimate criminal proceedings: The regime practiced arbitrary detention of journalists and dissidents.
International law prohibits it as a fundamental violation of liberty.
- freedom of movementLiberty to travel unimpeded
- unlawful imprisonmentIllegal restraint of another
- abuse of powerMisusing entrusted authority
- human rights defendersThose protecting fundamental freedoms
- renditionPerformed version of work
authoritarianism · internment · secret prison · black site · political repression · presumption of innocence · held without charge · political prisoner · prisoner of conscience · equality before the law · martial law · emergency powers · legal remedy · police misconduct · human dignity · wrongful · thrown in jail · locked away
- rightscivil liberties, constitutional rights, right, rights, human rights
- Charter Rightsfundamental freedoms, legal rights, equality rights, democratic rights, language rights
- rights abusestorture, ethnic cleansing, political prisoners, disappearances, human trafficking
- missing personsmissing person, disappearance, missing children, missing child, vanished
- prison campsconcentration camp, prison camps, labor camp, gulags, internment camp
arbitrary detentionfreedom
Absence of constraint
liberty · release · free movement · emancipation · liberation
arbitrary detentiondue process
Guaranteed judicial fairness
fair trial · habeas corpus · judicial review · rule of law · legal proceedings